Posted by Bill Burroughs Thank you for the post! You are the first breakthrough that I have had on this line in some time. My connection of Elzy, John and William to a father named John Burroughs from Stafford County is a guess based on the following facts: 1. Family histories from descendents of these three repeatedly tying the family origin to Stafford County; Based on these facts and others, I pieced together my best guess as to these folk's origins. My theories are as follows: 1. John Burroughs the elder appears on the pension rolls in Mathews County in the 1830s because he has retired and moved to Mathews to be near his two sons, William K. and John Henry Burroughs Sr. (Elzy had moved on to Norfolk by then). It is of course quite possible that some or all of my theories are incorrect. One researcher had Samuel Burroughs as Elzy's dad. I have ruled this out for now as he went west with his family. I know that Samuel and Basil lived physically very close to each other (or together) according to the early censuses. I suspect that all of these early Burroughs' are related to each other. Basil could very well be Elzy's dad. But if so, how are we to square with the arrival of a John Burroughs in Mathews in 1831 drawing a Revolutionary War pension? I am anxious to learn whatever I can from you about your sources and in particular you source for the desent of Elzy and kin from Basil Burroughs and Margaret Riley. Thank you for your post!!!! Bill
on 10/7/2004, 1:24 pm, in reply to "Re: John Burroughs"
148.64.167.104
Dear Jane:
2. Elzy (and probably other brothers) were skilled stone masons who worked in sandstone. Elzy was a talented engineer as well. There are no quarries anywhere near Mathews County. Elzy built three lighthouses out of sandstone in the first decade of the 19th century in Virginia's Chesapeake Bay area, the last in Mathews County. Tradition says the sandstone came from the Aquia Creek quarries in Stafford County;
3. In the mid 1830's a man named John Burroughs started collecting a Revolutionary War pension in Mathews County, apparently for war service in 1775. He was not living in Mathews by the 1840 Census;
4. There are indications that a John Burroughs purchased land in Mathews County between 1811 and 1818 (this could have been Elzy's brother);
5. A John Burroughs purchased 52 acres of land in the Dyers Creek area of New Point, Mathews County in 1832. This is close to where the last lighthouse was constructed and where the family is still seated to this day.
6. A John Burroughs was involved in a law suit in Fredericksburg, VA in 1804 involving a quarry reference in Stafford County and the taking of stone from the property of John Burroughs;
7. In October, 1809, Mary Dawson, the remarried widow of Baily Riley and apparently several of her Riley children sold land in the Aquia Creek area of Stafford County to John Burroughs.
8. Death record of Alfred Burroughs show father John and mother Margaret.
9. There were no Burroughs in Mathews County prior to 1800, but several families lived there in 1810.
2. Elzy and brothers developed their impressive sandstone masonry skills in the sandstone quarries of Stafford County, near Aquia Creek.
3. John is a name the repeats continually in this line. It made sense that their father might be named John.
4. The timing of the purchase of the 52 acres of land coincides roughly with the application by a John Burroughs for a Revolutionary War pension in Mathews County. This plays into the theory that John had just arrived, possibly with money in hand from selling his properties (quarries??) in Stafford County.
5. I theorize that John Burroughs purchased his wife's (maiden name Riley) family's interest in land in Stafford from her widowed mother and siblings. Possibly they were moving out west to Kentucky as very many were at this time with Revolutionary War bounty land that the John Burroughs who later drew a pension in Mathews County did not qualify for. I pieced together the name "Margaret Riley" from the above and Alfred's death record.
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